


The end of the line

by Finsternis



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post Avengers Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finsternis/pseuds/Finsternis
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERS!A post-credit scene from Avengers:Endgame.





	The end of the line

**Author's Note:**

> The time travel logic of the Endgame has screwed my brain. And Steve, leaving his pal Bucky for a woman he knew like for five minutes... nope. Doesn't sit good with me. Nope. 
> 
> So I decided to fix things. 
> 
> English isn't my first language, and the only person who would beta-read for me is avoiding spoilers... So comments are welcome. 
> 
> It is actually an easy fix.

They steal a day. Just one day. 

Scot building the time machine is a legitimate excuse. So it's just Steve and Bucky and an aftermath of a battle, more than one battle. 

Five years for Steve. Non-existence for Bucky. Their timelines, entwined from the childhood, have been a messy macramé of ice and fights, of memories wiped and cherished. 

Bucky looks at his pal and sees a broken man. The fire, the spirit of a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight is replaced by deep sense of loss. Steve's blue eyes look dim and Bucky knows how it is – not to know anything but battle. 

There are no former soldiers and Steve Rogers is a veteran of too many wars. 

Steve doesn't talk much. Steve, who would never shut up, even according to Bucky's still quite unreliable memory. Maybe there is just nothing left to say.

Tony is gone. Natasha is gone. And Bucky can't shake a feeling that Steve feels like he should be gone, too. Survivor's guilt. Those people were Steve's family. 

Bucky sits on the bench next to Steve, on the left. His flesh hand squeezing Steve's shoulder. Steve leans into him and doesn't wipe the tear from his face. It doesn't feel like winning.

Bucky knows there is nothing in this world that would make the all-encompassing loneliness go away. The homelessness that Steve - misplaced in time – has always carried with him. 

Bucky thought a lot about Steve during his months in Wakanda. Steve was the only thing he knew. Steve was pulling him out of years of memory wipes. An anchor, in the bottomless ocean of the present.

Bucky looked at his friend and saw loneliness. He desperately wanted to beg Steve to stay. But Steve had fights not to run away from.

Years passed, lives passed and somewhere along the way both of them have lost those people they had been back in 1943. 

Bucky still doesn't understand how time travel works. What he does know - one can't unlive a life. Past is past, no matter when it happens. Their happy endings haven't happened long ago. 

Shuri could fixed the shield. Bucky is not sure there is anything that can fix Steve. Except maybe...

"Stay," Bucky says. The wind catches his hair and they stick to his lips.

"M?" Steve asks looking at Bucky.

"Stay when there is a happy ending." Bucky says. "Have a life, marry your best girl, have kids, eat food without having to snap a picture of it,” he laughs. “Be Steve, just Steve." 

Rogers looks at him. Disbelief and confusion and “I really didn’t think about that, pal” written in big neon letters all over his face. A face, that looks scarily like it did back in the 30s, when Steve got to catch a breath after an asthma attack: exhausted and a bit terrified.

"I can't, I have to..." Steve starts… and trails off.

"You have paid all your debts Steve.” Bucky assures, “You don't owe anything to anyone anymore... The battles are fought. The sacrifices are made. It’s time to move on." 

The silence, heavy with thought, filled with leaves rustling and birds singing hangs upon them – an indulgence and anathema.

"I can't, I won’t be able to watch things happen and do nothing...” Steve utters – hand squeezing hand, nervous and desperate.

"Maybe it's time to learn to step away from the fight," words are light on Bucky’s tongue. He thought them countless times before: in the backstreets of Brooklyn, in the tranches of the World War, in the Siberian bunker. He thought them, but never uttered, because Steve wouldn’t listen. 

He hears him now.

"You never wanted to fight. It was always me," Steve lets out a humourless laugh. "You didn't want to go to war. You never did." It’s not a question.

Bucky shrugs. Draft. There is not much one could do about that. Not unlike Thanos with his fingersnapping: random victims for someone’s greater good. 

"Maybe," Bucky shrugs.

The silence is filled with leaves rustling and birds singing – with an idea, shaky and uncertain like a candle flame on a stormy night. 

“Hey Cap, we are kind of done. Gotta make do with the Pym particles though. No re-dos.” Scot’s voice cuts through the silence.

Steve puffs out a heavy sigh and reaches into his pocket. A small veil of red liquid fragile in his fingers. The Pym particles, smuggled from the past, to steal a future. 

Bucky shakes his head with a laugh. Captain America stealing stuff - that's the first. Bucky takes the veil carefully from his friend's hand, his fingers steady in their shaky hope.

“Till the end of the line, whenever that will be.” 

Fin.


End file.
